Organizations such as on-line retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many server racks.
Each server rack, in turn, includes many servers and associated computer equipment and computer components. Such components include printed circuit boards, mass storage devices, power supplies and processors, as just a few examples. Some known computer systems include a plurality of such larger, multiple-processor computers that are configured into rack-mounted components, and then are subsequently positioned within a rack system. Some known rack systems include 40 such rack-mounted components.
Some servers include a number of mass storage devices in the form of hard disk drives (for example, eight or more hard disk drives) to provide adequate data storage. Typically, the hard disk drives for servers are of a standard, off-the-shelf type. Standard, off-the-shelf hard disk drives are often a cost effective solution for storage needs because such hard disk drives can be obtained at relatively low cost. Nonetheless, in server designs using such standard hard disk drives, the arrangement of the hard disk drives may leave a substantial amount of wasted space in the server chassis. This wasted space, especially when multiplied over many servers in a rack, may result in inadequate computing or storage capacity for a system.
Conventional solutions for retaining hard disk drives in a supporting chassis or other structure, particularly where the hard disk drives (or other form of mass storage devices) are spaced together very closely, are limited. This is especially true for applications in which the hard disk drives are provided without carriers. Such hard disk drives, also referred to as “carrierless” hard disk drives, can be even more closely spaced because their dimensions are smaller. In one typical application, such carrierless hard disk drives do not exceed the standard form factor dimensions, e.g., the 3.5″ Form Factor Drive Dimensions as specified in SFF-8301 (incorporated herein by reference), but the same challenges exists for mass storage devices of any size.